Today’s post comes from author, blogger, programmer, gentleman, scholar, professional fractalist, amateur Twitterer, coffee-drinker, book collector, Trekkie, canine enthusiast, graphic novel connoisseur, co-conspirator, and very good friend Ben Trube. His latest work is the mystery novel Surreality, which he was brave enough to offer to me in my very first attempt at copyediting.

Writing a rough draft is actually pretty easy. It basically involves typing until you hit a certain word count. But revising and editing that draft into something that won’t make someone’s eyes bleed, that’s the tricky part.

During the many revisions of Surreality I tried just about every editing technique I could think of, and enlisted the help of two invaluable compatriots, my wife and my copy-editor, Brian. I think he writes a blog or something.

I had an algebra teacher who believed in something he called “Calculator Dependency Syndrome”. Basically, he…